Work in Progress

Very nice progress! And since Peter lives in Belgium I suspect he knows at least a little French. I, who don't know any French, is on the other hand quite happy that the newspaper is upside down so I'm not tempted to try to read it!

I find impossible to make a diorama of this size by me , my admiration for his great work!

"I'm starting underlining the details on the white, there's 2 methods, using a very thin brush with black paint (20 minutes of work for each figure and a lot of concentration)or with a 0,35 rotring (3 minutes of work for each figures, easy) and then covered with mat varnish to fix the result. after many different test I've found the best tool for this task, it's a pen Staedtler 0,3mm, it give me the quality I expect and more faster than any other methods so I will use it for all the figures of this projectthe tip of the pen is sharpened even more thinner with a cutter to improve the result. You will notice that I'm already circling buttons before painting them."

Is a great idea and the result is very good, I would never have thought of it.The next white uniform I 'll paint, I'll do it this way.A question .. I have been looking for the final photos of "WWII front pacific "in the forum and I have not found them ...I'd love to see the final result,

Thank you for your comment Lacc, it will be a huge diorama like my war in the pacific but it doesn't take much place because everything can be stored inside few plastic boxes.if you live in a small flat you can do it

This time there will be one ground for summer and another in winter, while painting figure I still have to decide which option will be built on these grounds (Village, town, river and so on), there's plenty of others possibilities, but the core of this project remain the 2000 figures.

I'm at the stage where I think I'll try your pencil technique but wonder if it's possible to use an acrylic wash after using a flat varnish to fix the penciling? Maybe "The Dip" would be a different option for me?

Davbenbak1 I think the mat varnish doesn't hurt the wash, it's the contrary, It helps the wash to slide into the place where you want to see it. You can make a try with one figure.

Many thanks for those great comment everybody !

I have painted shoes in black (with a part 70875 beige brown for officers) and buttons with Prince August 801 Laiton (Vallejo 70801 Laiton).

I tried to use the range of alcool based metallic paint from Vallejo/Prince August, very nice colors (gold, silver, copper and so on) but this paint is very thick, dry very fast and when diluted too often with alcool turn the gold into some brown and silver into grey... And when completely dried, it still leave some pigment on your finger when you touch it. This paint can probably fit for some use, but surely not the task of painting very thin details. the ordinary range of water based Vallejo/Prince August metal color fit much better with less problems and similar result, except maybe the gold (70996) who is somewhat translucent, but all the others are great, including old gold.

I'm now starting to paint jackets in blue Vallejo 70809 Royal Blue and it will be followed by a black wash and drybrush.

Keep them coming! I've strayed into painting 28mm WWII infantry but will one day return to my legions (or should I say divisions) of Hat French infantry. Your work will undoubtablely provide a great reference,

After the black wash on the blue of the jacket, come the drybrush (50% blue and 50% white). The cuffs of the jacket are painted red (Vallejo 70909 vermillion) with a blue stripe on it (Vallejo 70809 royal blue) and buttons (Vallejo 70801 Laiton).

it doesn't represent much progress for one figure, but painting this on so much figures take a looooooooooot of time ! Thank you for you support !

I know by now you have a strong personality that is working undisturbed towards a mind settled goal without letting other people disturb you.

But if a historical context is your aim for these figures (which it is) I think you should reconsider the blue color of the French coats. I say this because I don't want you to end up finished painting all 600 of them and realize this is the color that was used by musicians, ADC's and some hussars like the 2nd and 10th only and even for these exception-uniforms your blue looks extremely strong (a chemical color, not very credible for that era) Wasn't the French blue a color between dark blue and black?

Royal or indigo blue with lots of black ink and no highlight at all would come nearer.

I always appreciate your comments Mr cryns because you're always concerned by historical accuracy as I am. Yes, you're right, many french uniform are mostly dark blue, but not all of them because being manufactured by many different factory using different pattern, colors, size and type of buttons, style and so on.

The dark blue became the rule after the campaign of Russia, when they had to dress a whole army of young recruits with new uniforms (1813).

all of the uniform shown in this page are authentic, not copy, the first one (1815) show different proportions to what we're accustomed to find for such model (really big buttons !) and very dark blue, close to black.

The last one in this page (Voltigeurs) show the kind of blue I'm using, which can be even more light under the sun (and not the very dark room of a museum. (French army museum - les invalides, Paris)

You will also notice that the cuffs I've just painted have only 2 buttons instead of 3 (one is missing), it was something usual.